Date: November 18, 1924
Location: Washington, D.C.
(Original document available here)
I don’t think any decision has been reached in the matter of appointing a Commissioner of Immigration for the Port of Philadelphia. I know there is some discussion there between New Jersey and Pennsylvania. I don’t know as there is any serious disagreement about it. I think I can make an appointment there very soon.
I have received from the Tariff Commission yesterday further information on the cost of beet sugar production. I haven’t had a chance to think it over yet, but from what I know about it I assume it is adequate and will enable me to make a decision which I hope to make very soon.
I haven’t any objection to making the report that came to me on the rent situation in the District of Columbia public, so far as I know. The Attorney General suggested to me that he wanted to make some investigations relative to some suggestions or facts that were in the report, and preferred not to have it made public pending the making of these investigations. I assume his reason was that it might defeat the ends of justice.
I haven’t made any final selection for vacancies in the United States District Court at San Francisco or United States District Attorney for the vacancies in Hawaii. I expect that the Attorney General will be able to report to me such facts as the Department of Justice may ascertain relative to suggestions that have been made to me of different names for the appointment of various judicial officers. There are several vacancies that I quite naturally couldn’t fill until the Congress convened. I could have made a recess appointment, but in case I didn’t get elected, I think it has been the usual practice to refuse to confirm appointments made by a President who hasn’t been reelected. It wouldn’t be hardly fair to ask somebody to take a judicial appointment and take him from his judicial practice. Of course it would be very unfair to ask a man to resign from a place on the district bench in order to take a place on the circuit bench, so I had to hold these appointments off until the reconvening of the Senate. As soon as the Senators arrive in town, so that they can be consulted about various suggestions that have been made, I think the Attorney General will be able to report to me what facts his Department finds, so that I can go right ahead with them.
I haven’t given any consideration to the matter of appointing a successor to the place of Register of the Treasury. I think that is a place that formerly was held by a colored man. I think that was changed under President Roosevelt, who, according to my recollection appointed an Indian to that place. I may be wrong about that, but that is my recollection, as some of you men may perhaps recall. I haven’t any policy about appointing either a white man or a colored man or an Indian to that place.
I haven’t any plan about attending the Howard-Lincoln football game on Thanksgiving Day.
And I haven’t any statement that I can make now about the race plan presented by Mr. William C. Matthews. If that is something that has been presented to me, I don’t think it has reached me. It may possibly have come into the outer office. If it has, it hasn’t come in here. I will make inquiry about that and instruct that anything that comes in relative to my message to the Congress be laid aside so that I can take them all up at once.
There is nothing that I can say in addition to what I have already said about the present members of the Cabinet, and no resignations, so far as I know, have been suggested by any of the major members of the diplomatic corps.
There isn’t anything that I can say at the present time relative to a Disarmament Conference, other than what I have said in my various speeches and messages.
I don’t expect to attend the football game next Saturday, but I do expect to go to the Army and Navy game a week from next Saturday at Baltimore.
That covers the questions this morning. Thank you.
Citation: Calvin Coolidge: Remarks by the President to Newspaper CorrespondentsÂ
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